Al Pacino is detailing his experience with a really bad case of COVID-19 in 2020.
The legendary actor spoke with The New York Times ahead of the release of his upcoming memoir, Sonny Boy. During the conversation, the Scarface star opened up about his near-death experience with coronavirus before vaccines were available.
He explained that, at the time, he felt unusually not well, eventually coming down with a fever and getting dehydrated.
“So, I got someone to get me a nurse to hydrate me. I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn’t have a pulse,” he said. “In a matter of minutes they were there — the ambulance in front of my house. I had about six paramedics in that living room, and there were two doctors, and they had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something.”
Pacino admitted it was “shocking” to open his eyes and see all of that around him, “Everybody was around me, and they said: ‘He’s back. He’s here,’” he added.
When asked if his experience had any “metaphysical ripples,” the Oscar-winning actor said that it did because he didn’t see a white light or anything
“There’s nothing there. As Hamlet says, ‘To be or not to be’; ‘The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns.’ And he says two words: ‘No more,’” the Godfather star said. “It was no more. You’re gone. I’d never thought about it in my life. But you know actors: It sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?”
As he’s gotten older, the 84-year-old noted that his view of death has changed. He shared that he finds some consolation in having children and in knowing that he has a massive body of work that people will go back to after he dies.
“It’s natural, I guess, to have a different view of death as you get older,” Pacino said. “It’s just the way it is. I didn’t ask for it. Just comes, like a lot of things just come.”
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